After a summer alive with rain and little time for outdoors leisure activities, on such a rare sunny Saturday, four amazing bands include Jackdaws, Hummingbirds, Ratty Little Fingers and Pete Bentham &The Dinnerladies, gave us a special summer treat from four totally different styles, with as much opportunity to become an attractive combination. With a grand reputation around the Preston and surrounding areas it was difficult not to expect the great music coupled with a warm atmosphere at the Mad Ferret on the Saturday nights.

Making it to the Mad Ferret for their first gig, Preston’s band Jackdaws have a folk rock beat, well with a fine variety of musical elements, did well to set the mood for the gig tonight. Their folk inspired set was immediately what the crowd wanted, folk guitar and hearty vocal from lead singer Ste are perfectly along with their bassist Mike and drummer Tom, weaving through the touching melodies as they built different but great scenes according to their inspiring set in front of the crowds.

Playing a nine song set, the band began with the solo Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover) – a track by leading vocal Ste which had gained certain attention at the Ferret previously with a very lovely music box accompaniment. Well, forget you’re a member of the new or old crowds, you simply couldn’t resist the clear and delicate tinkling sound came from Ste’s music box, and his heartfelt vocals.

If the music box version cover was an “appetizer”, a feast for the crowds’ ears just got started.

Following on from Love Will Tear Us Apart, the band together played the narrative The Great Northern which received a very good reaction from the listeners, they were cheering and shouting “Jackdaws!”. Following up were the crowds’ two favourites – Undertaker’s Daughter and, Sea Enemies which was the first time they’ve played as a full band, a positive hint of influences showed the vigor they brought to the increasing number of listeners was absolutely amazing. Then you have Cigarettes with stark lyrics and tunes seemed to tell you a heartfelt story which turned the crowds into the deep thoughts.

The Great Northern + Undertaker’s Daughter

Good Things Happen To Good People and Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game further increased the pace and volume at the Ferret, it’s a pleasure to watch a band when you feel there’re some real reasons for being there and some input into each track. Next, you simply cannot help smiling when Ste introduced the song Eulogy for Carrie Magee, as the room is full of a great friendly and sunny feel that was too good take the crowds to another consistently fun atmosphere created by the Jackdaws. It was probably concluded by seeing the crowd as one big happy family.

Good Things Happen To Good People + Eulogy for Carrie Magee

Obviously, Eulogy for Carrie Magee led to shouts of an encore, the set closed with Butterflies, Jackdaws performed the song with enjoyable and upbeat melodies, and the perfect ending to what was a quite impressive set.

Butterflies

Tonight, most songs on the band setlist are original “Jackdaws material”, which was very commendable, and this also shows that Jackdaws is a new but very promising band with potential to be Preston’s next “big folk rock act” which is worth of watching again. It was a good performance from the Jackdaws and we look forward to seeing their next gig.

Luke Jackson is about to release his first album, which is progressing rapidly in recent days. The name of it may be The Time Is Now. This is a new track from this album called Miss Rachel Zhong, which he has been working on for the past 3 weeks with FL studio.You can clearly hear the flute and Japanese string instruments that make this song more sounds like a Japanese style.

Getting the inspirations from the moments happened couple of days ago, when Luke strongly felt the necessarity of chilling out the flippancy nowdays, so he decided to make a new song only instrumentals to help relax.

Luke’s new album will be on sale soon at Willy Banjos and Action Records in Preston. Would be ace if you could go and give a try on the copies of his songs.

Like this:

Running as North West’s the biggest band battles, you may wonder how exactly prominent the competition held by RTR Unsigned is, but when you keep an eye on it, you will easily find massive fan votes and siginificant attention they’ve got for the past few months till now. Nevertheless, there’s only one winner tonight, with all 3 judges and the fans all voting for ‘March‘ as the winners of the 1st heat which see’s them rolling on heat 2.

RTR Unsigned Heat 1 just clearly shows how big, phenomenonal and amazing it is per se, which probably can be seen as one of the best nights in the local music scenes. This should definitely give attribute to the 4 top bands tonight, Defy The Sky, March, The Blackhand, Ides of March. Every band that walked onto the stage, kicked ass and ultimately won over the crowd.

The outset of the night we have Jamie Brewer and his band Defy The Sky. Not only the fascinating music they make, but thanks to their natural ability and arts of getting the audience going and everything, especially their charismatic vocalist, Rob Pocock, Unsigned Acts / Preston totally felt the spirit of the occasion caused by them. The audiences are jumping along with Rob. Obviously, appealing and yet influential Defy The Sky got loads of following that night, which consequently leaded the show to a new level. Meanwhile, Unsigned Acts / Preston musician Jamie Brewer and other band members definitely give their fully supports on the stage, make the band “like a 50 year relationship” .

Here’s the set list from Defy The Sky on RTR Unsigned Heat 1:

Retreat Escape Evacuate
Side With The Guilty
Shine For You
Need To Know
The Boy In The Mirror
Your Heart Will Be Defended

Next up was The Blackhand with a balsy furrow meltdown. Not too many fan bases on the scene that night, nevertheless, the crowd head-banged along to most of their songs, with each member showing their own current touch on tonight, plus their unique musical style and beat, and highly powerful grunge appeal, made them won the crowd’ loyal supports as well.

Followers are the amazing March, who absolutely blew away the crowds, with specialty and different touching choruses. The constantly explosive moments they brought us had clearly showed their undoubted talent to wow the audiences.

Finally, it’s incredible Ides of March that rock the night. They answered the challenges from previous bands with astonishing confidence. This, however, was embedded in individual styles from each band members. The riffs jumped around recklessly in their set make them another spotlight of the night.